Fences and gates in cyberspace: Is the Internet becoming a threat to democracy?

Abstract

Departing from the concept of media citizenship, a concept implying certain personal informational rights such as the rights to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any medium without interference and regardless of frontiers (cf. WSIS (UN World Summit on Information Society) declaration on the Information Society), and seeing such rights as a fundamental dimension of democratic citizenship on equal footing with fundamental civil, political and social rights, this essay analyses the extent to which ICT/the Internet in its current form contributes to the realisation of such media citizenship. Through an analysis of recent developments within the copyright protection area and the software patent area, it is demonstrated that these developments constitute a serious undermining of the freedom to seek, receive and impart information on and through the Internet, and thus significantly confines and restricts media citizenship. Furthermore, these developments delegate significant legislative, executive and judicial power to a few international companies and industry organisations, and work to set up especially Microsoft as a decisive political authority in the information society.